BuzzFeed hires Reuters reporter Lauria to start biz section

Reuters media reporter Peter Lauria has been hired by BuzzFeed to start its business section, reports Keach Hagey of The Wall Street Journal.

Hagey writes, “The move, which Buzzfeed plans to announce Monday, is part of the company’s attempt to expand beyond Facebook and Twitter into business-focused online communities such as LinkedIn.

“‘There is increasingly this big, social conversation around business content that people are sharing and reading, and we want to be in it,’ said Ben Smith, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed.

“BuzzFeed was launched in 2006 by former Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti around the idea of making stories that people would be moved to share with their friends on social networks. Its advertising model is based on the same idea, eschewing banner ads in favor of sponsored content that is also designed to be shared on Facebook and Twitter. For news content, this model places a heavy premium on originality—scoops and humor.

“The new section continues the rapid expansion of BuzzFeed, which has more than tripled its Web traffic in the past two years to more than 14 million monthly unique visitors, according to comScore. BuzzFeed’s internal count puts its traffic at more than 40 million unique visitors a month.”

Read more here. Here is a Q&A that Talking Biz News did with Reuters just last month.